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Some Democratic strategists and aides are apparently hoping that former New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s plan to spend $50 million on a new gun control group will help the party in the 2014 midterm elections.

AP

Though gun control has rarely been an election day winner, Democrats have traditionally had a problem with voter turnout in the midterms. The thinking is that an anti-gun ad blitz could fire up the core Democratic base.

“If he is successful, the people he will motivate to vote are extremely likely to vote for Democrats, period, end of story,” a senior Senate Democratic aide told the New York Daily News.

The group hopes to recruit 2.5 million supporters this year and motivate them to go to the polls. That could be crucial in a year when Republicans have their eye on winning control of the Senate.

A Democratic strategist, also speaking anonymously told the newspaper, “It could help drive Democratic turnout.”

The Bloomberg-founded Mayors Against Illegal Guns merged with the organization Moms Demand Action for Gun Sense in America to form the new group, Everytown for Gun Safety. The merger was announced late last year, while the name change was announced just last week, along with former three-term mayor’s vow to spend $50 million on the group.

Bloomberg’s group has a mixed record with electoral success, dumping money into two Colorado campaigns last year to fund two state senators who still lost their seats in recall elections.

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In my experience, most Democrats care very little about guns…certainly, reasonable gun regulations only make sense to them, but if they don’t happen, usually, it only elicits a shrug of the shoulders and a shake of the head.

On the right, however, it is made into a major issue. “Gun rights” advocates rile people up with apocalyptic scenarios of death and destruction until they feel they will most certainly die if not for the gun in their hands. Then those advocates point to the strawmen and and say that it is them who are trying to take your right to defend yourself away.

Quite simply, this is one of those cases where an issue is a wedge on one side, and a shrug on the other…the Democrats would do well to have this money spent countering the conspiracy-theory like nonsense on the right instead of using it to drum up support for reasonable gun regulations.

Bloomsburg’s going to lose this time. He’s no longer a small-time city dictator appealing to liberal NYC socialists. He’s going national with his anti-gun campaign. However he does not have a national bully pulpit and nationally the majority of voters don’t want restrictions on their Second Amendment right to self-defense. I doubt any amount of cash is going to change that. I’m betting that peoples’ common sense, gut instincts, and sense of self-preservation trump Bloomsburg’s big bully money.